This is the 3rd generation of Neil Burridge's Ewart Park sword, which
was made for the Bronze
Sword Festival.

Compared to the previous sword, some minor adjustments have been made
to further improve the sword. This sword is slightly
shorter, which brings it closer to the average range of these swords.
Although the previous sword was already a very accurate
reproduction, this one is definately my favorite. It handels beautifully,
and just looks perfect.

I don't know if this sword is based on one particular find. At least
the hilt itself is pretty close to the sword from Waterloo Bridge.

The blade before finishing

Below in the photo is the sword as I got it, compared to
the previous sword (above).

Used tools to finish the blade

To finish the blade I used a flap disc attached to a drill,
a dremel with various bits and a fine grit sandpaper.

Finished blade

The blade itself is finished using the flap disc. For the
hilt tang I used the dremel. This took about 2 hours. Then I spend a good
4 hours with a fine grit sandpaper to remove the grinding marks. All together
in only 6 hours, which is a very short time. This just shows the very high
quality of the cast!

The hilt

The parts for the hilt were given at the festival as rough
blanks, and are from beech wood. First I drilled the holes. To do this,
I taped the first hiltplate to the sword. I then drilled two holes, inserting
a rivet after each hole to keep the holes perfectly aligned. Then I drilled
the remaining holes. After that I taped the next hilt plate on as well,
and used the holes from the first to guide the drill. Again I used the
rivets to keep the hiltplates in place.

Then I finished the hilt components. For most of the work
I used a coarse half round file. For the pommel I also used a knife, as
I had quite a bit of material to remove. After all the parts were shaped,
I used a medium grit size sandpaper to smoothen the parts.

The wood is impregnated with line-oil. This makes the wood
stronger, more durable and more resistant to dirt. The use of line-oil
in the bronze age is not proven. But line-seed was grown for food and and
linnen (the plant fibers), so it's not unthinkable the oil from the seeds
were used on important wooden parts as sword hilts. After applying the
line-oil, it will have to dry at least several days.